Rastopchin, Nikolai

Born Nov. 22, 1884, in Borovichi, now in Novgorod Oblast; died Oct. 1, 1969, in Moscow. Participant in the revolutionary movement in Russia and Soviet party figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1903. Son of a rural teacher.

Rastopchin studied at the Nizhny Novgorod Mechanical-Technical School from 1899 to 1903 and was arrested and expelled for his membership in a Social Democratic organization. In 1905 he was one of the organizers of a general strike at the St. Petersburg railroad junction. He was arrested and exiled more than once and lived in emigration. From 1915 he worked in Moscow. During the February Revolution of 1917, Rastopchin was a member of the revolutionary committee in Kostroma. He became a member of the Kostroma committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik) and was editor of Severnyi Rabochii, the party newspaper for the province. He was a delegate to the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP(B).

From 1917 to 1920, Rastopchin was chairman of the Kostroma soviet, the city committee of the party, and the Yaroslavl provincial committee of the RCP(B). He worked as a party official in Moscow from 1920. He became a candidate to the Central Control Commission of the ACP(B) in 1923 and was a member of the commission from 1924 to 1934. From 1934 he held several administrative posts. He engaged in political work in the Soviet Army during World War II. He served as a delegate to the Eighth, Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fifteenth through Seventeenth Party Congresses. He retired on a special pension in 1952.

Rastopchin was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner, and a number of medals.